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In his programs and promises, President Barack Obama Tuesday night offered the nation by far the most expansive agenda for the national government in decades.

In his words and mood, however, Obama presented this breathtakingly ambitious vision in a way intended to convey caution, moderation, sobriety.

The 52-minute address outlined more commitments by the public sector, more intervention into the private economy, and more spending than anything Washington has undertaken at least since the Great Society and more likely the New Deal.

The substance reflected Obama’s bet that the country—alarmed by the economic crisis, repelled by the failures of the president who preceded him—is ready to move in a decisively more liberal direction.

The rhetoric, by contrast, reflected his apparent belief that most Americans remain instinctually conservative, leaving him and his agenda acutely vulnerable to backlash.

The result was a bold vision supported by defensive arguments. Repeatedly he made his case by stressing what he and his program—with its trillions of dollars to jump-start the economy, bail out distressed auto firms, banks, and homeowners, and launch major new initiatives on health care, clean energy, and education—were not.

Referring to the $790 billion he won to jump-start the economy, he said he backed the measure, “Not because I believe in bigger government — I don't. Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited — I am.”

Nodding to public anger about coming to the rescue of reckless bankers, he repeated twice that he was trying to help people not banks, and practically pleaded, “I promise you — I get it.”

He took the same tack with homeowners, singling out “speculators” and those who borrowed beyond their means and pledging—in an assertion that critics vigorously dispute—that they would not be helped by his plan.

And on taxes, which he wants to raise on the most affluent, he repeated with emphasis that “not one single dime” will come from families earning less than $250,000.

In many ways, Obama used his speech to practice the politics of “pre-buttal”—attempting to pre-empt the lines of argument that Republicans hope can revive their defeated and demoralized party.

It was as if he and his speechwriters had listened closely to both Bill Clinton and Rick Santelli. It was Santelli, the CNBC commentator, who rallied bail-out skeptics with an on-air rant that Obama was rewarding irresponsible behavior by careless banks and homeowners.

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The former president, meanwhile, said recently that Obama needed more inspiration and hope mixed in with his bracing warnings about the anemic economy.

Obama closed his speech by telling lawmakers that if Washington rose to the occasion in meeting the crisis “then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, ‘something worthy to be remembered.’”

And, as Clinton and others recommended, he aimed to lift his speech above the particulars of the dire moment to tell a larger story about his own vision and how it relates to the country’s core values.

He did indeed rise above the particulars, often far above. The speech included broad-brush exhortations but little programmatic detail. There was scant elaboration on the cumulative costs of his agenda to save the auto industry, invest in better schools, or overhaul national policies on energy and health care. But there were repeated warnings that inaction would in the long run be more expensive.

Obama plainly saw the speech as less an opportunity for point-by-point persuasion and more as an occasion to address Americans from the secular equivalent of a national pulpit.

Although a young president at 47, Obama often enjoys striking a paternal note in his rhetoric. Tuesday night, he chided both Washington and at times the country on irresponsible behavior and presented himself as teacher, truth-teller, and, if necessary, head-knocker.

Readers' Comments (1914)

The United States is in one heck of a mess. The Bush administration borrowed and borrowed and borrowed some more, now all of those bills are coming due. Bush built all of the US growth on borrowed money. Obama must turn this mess around and the whole mess has its on momentum. The GOP is working hard to make sure Obama does not succeed. The GOP has an agenda that needs to have a ruined US to stay politically viable.

The GOP is working hard to make sure Obama does not succeed. The GOP has an agenda that needs to have a ruined US to stay politically viable.

The toxic component of the GOP and the malcontents who support them will fail and Obama will succeed. The world watched Obama's speech today and were very impressed. Congratulations America, you have a leader. President Obama in his short time in office is challenging JFK in his oratory skills. If he can succeed in his mission, the 44th president may well turn out to be one of the greats.

>In an interview with the Washington Times, the Republican governor of Utah on Monday said his party's leaders in Congress' lack of new ideas renders them so "inconsequential" that he doesn't even bother to talk to them.

>"I don't even know the GOP congressional leadership," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told the paper's editors and reporters. "I have not met them. I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential -- completely." Huntsman added that he would not reject any money from President Obama's stimulus. While he criticized what he saw as misdirected spending in bill, he said Republicans had no credibility on fiscal responsibility.

>"Our moral soapbox was completely taken away from us because of our behavior in the last few years," he said. "For us to now criticize analogous behavior is hypocrisy. We've got to come at it a different way. We've got to prove the point. It can't be as the Chinese would say, 'fei hua,' [or] empty words."

These are the priorities President Obama has set for the country. He outlined his agenda in a clear, concise, accessible, and lucid way last night, and he did it without using hyperbole or distractive jingoisms.

He demonstrated once again why he is one of the best politicians this generation has produced, and why the American people were very wise to elect him.

There is no question that our addiction to oil is slowly diminishing our ability to compete in the world’s economy. Our system of healthcare is strangling business, and it’s not serving the majority of our citizen’s needs. Without a quality educational system we can watch China and India continue to chip away at our lead in the world.

He proved that he is willing to work with Republicans, take their good ideas when presented, and reject their failed ideas when insisted on again. He used humor, honesty, and complete candor regarding our need to make changes to our financial regulatory systems. He outlined his desire to cut our budget where necessary, and to invest in those areas that will pay off over the long run.

Republicans in the chamber looked pensive and confused. John McCain, the party’s last failed candidate, looked like someone who had no idea why the world was passing him by, and the rest of their side of the aisle likewise looked at times angry and bitter – did I hear them BOO once? – and at other times they simply looked obligated to stand and applaud.

The American people saw a huge difference between Democrats and Republicans last night. They saw that Democrats want to work for the betterment and advancement of the nation, and they saw that Republicans are simply trying to claw their way back to power for their own selfish purposes without regard to the nation as a whole.

Bobby Jindal, giving the Republican response, was as representative of the repellent agenda of the GOP as could be imagined. He started out giving a campaign speech touting his wonderful background with all the platitudes of a smiling and completely phony politician. The then went on to snidely catalogue all the misinformation that has become the hallmark of the GOP. He even used the government response under the direction of a Republican administration (Government IS the problem, drown it in a bathtub) to hurricane Katrina to try to convince Americans not to trust the government. He lied about trains to Disneyland, and he attacked Democrats specifically, and vicariously President Obama. If the GOP thinks this is their last best hope they are doomed to political obscurity.

America will wake up this morning realizing once again that President Obama is on the peoples side, and that the GOP is on the Republicans side.

Short on specifics. I feel like Obama is playing a game of three card monte with us. He keeps hiding the card that has the practical details on it. I am not suckered by this continual delay and chronic vagueness. It's pure demagoguery. The false claims made by Obama conflict with his actions and if he was not drunk when he decided on his agenda - free college for everybody....woohoooo - then he is actually insane.

Oh, and we are doing a countdown of the days it takes before Eric (the insulter) Holder apologizes to all whites living and deceased in this country, millions and millions who have not been "cowards" on the issue of race. If Holder continues to fail to publicly apologize - that means Obama has created and is enabling a government where only whites are responsible for what they say. If a white person would've said what Holder did - he would've been fired immediately. This is a time for TRUE equality - blacks want power - fine - it comes with responsibility. No double standards anymore. And where is the Rev Al Sharpton to throw his typical illiterate tantrums to fight for racial justice of the whites being unfairly attacked by Holder? I thought Sharpton didn't like racial biggotry and insults? Has anyone heard Sharpton calling for Holder to resign or apologize? I've heard dozens of people who remain very angry about the grave insult made by Eric Holder and it is not diminishing.

Eric -you're an irresponsible stereotypical brown stain without a shine box, yo daddy was a coward and yo mama wears army boots.

An increasing number of recent letters and e-mails from readers strike a note, not only of unhappiness with the way things are going in our society, but a note of despair.

Those of us who are pessimists are only a step away from despair ourselves, so we may not be the ones to offer the best antidote to the view that America has seen its best days and is degenerating toward what may well be its worst. Yet what hope remains is no less precious nor any less worthy of being preserved.

First of all, the day-to-day life of most Americans in these times is nowhere near as dire as that of the band of cold, ragged and hungry men who gathered around George Washington in the winter at Valley Forge, to which they had been driven by defeat after defeat.

Only the most reckless gambler would have bet on them to win. Only an optimist would have expected them to survive.

Against the background of those and other desperate times that this country has been through, we cannot whine today because the stocks in our pension plans have gone down or the inflated value that our houses had just a few years ago has now evaporated.

In another sense, however, looming ahead of us-- and our children and their children-- are dangers that can utterly destroy American society. Worse yet, there are moral corrosions within ourselves that weaken our ability to face the challenges ahead.

One of the many symptoms of this decay from within is that we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs.

Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone's paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins?

Yet the only serious obstacle to that happening is that the Israelis may disregard the lofty blather coming out of the White House and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities before the Iranian fanatics can destroy Israel.

If by some miracle we manage to avoid the fatal dangers of a nuclear Iran, there will no doubt be others, including a nuclear North Korea.

Although, in some sense, the United States of America is still the militarily strongest nation on earth, that means absolutely nothing if our enemies are willing to die and we are not.

It took only two nuclear bombs to get Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese of that era were far tougher than most Americans today. Just one bomb-- dropped on New York, Chicago or Los Angeles-- might be enough to get us to surrender.

If we are still made of sterner stuff than it looks like, then it might take two or maybe even three or four nuclear bombs, but we will surrender.

It doesn't matter if we retaliate and kill millions of innocent Iranian civilians-- at least it will not matter to the fanatics in charge of Iran or the fanatics in charge of the international terrorist organizations that Iran supplies.

Ultimately, it all comes down to who is willing to die and who is not.

How did we get to this point? It was no single thing.

The dumbing down of our education, the undermining of moral values with the fad of "non-judgmental" affectations, the denigration of our nation through poisonous propaganda from the movies to the universities. The list goes on and on.

The trajectory of our course leads to a fate that would fully justify despair. The only saving grace is that even the trajectory of a bullet can be changed by the wind.

We have been saved by miraculous good fortune before in our history. The overwhelming military and naval expedition that Britain sent to New York to annihilate George Washington's army was totally immobilized by a vast impenetrable fog that allowed the Americans to escape. That is how they ended up in Valley Forge.

In the World War II naval battle of Midway, if things had not happened just the way they did, at just the time they did, the American naval force would not only have lost, but could have been wiped out by the far larger Japanese fleet.

Over the years, we have had our share of miraculous deliverances. But that our fate today depends on yet another miracle is what can turn pessimism to despair.

"We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day"...The word of our leader Barack Obama. He is talking about the GOP of course. The group of malcontents that drove the country into the ditch.

After listening to the great speech by Obama and remembering all the stupid ones by Bush, it is obvious the Republican Party somewhere along the line sold its soul big time. It is difficult to feel sorry for the dupes like Jindal - but more importantly the GOP corruption and pure irrelevance are obvious to the masses and they are en garde.

whenever racist jon martin does an article here he always says obama instead of PRESIDENT OBAMA. yesterday all day the other article said president obama. . jon martin has no respect for president obama and it shows in his articles. now john harris is included in the only obama name. if anyone needs proof read the other articles. and u will see. i am now going over to huffington post and mention this every time they mentioned the politico how they allow this.

"You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician," said New York Times columnist David Brooks, appearing on PBS, "and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" -- it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea ... that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this ... it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate."

Fox "news" pundits on Jindal: BRIT HUME: "The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal's greatest oratorical moment." NINA EASTON: "The delivery was not exactly terrific." CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Jindal didn't have a chance. He follows Obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. He's in a Reagan-esque league. ... [Jindal] tried the best he could." JUAN WILLIAMS: "It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.

whenever racist jon martin does an article here he always says obama instead of PRESIDENT OBAMA. yesterday all day the other article said president obama. . jon martin has no respect for president obama and it shows in his articles. now john harris is included in the only obama name. if anyone needs proof read the other articles. and u will see. i am now going over to huffington post and mention this every time they mentioned the politico how they allow this.

I think you should spend more time here. Huffpo is fine for listening to the choir, but I’d rather debate those with differing views - and prove them wrong - than join the chorus.all

I think you do a fine job of engaging the oblivious right wing, and your contributions are needed here more than there.

Now he's going to cut the deficit? By increasing Bush's bloated spending dramatically? And then when of course he can't deliver this fantasy, it'll be "Bush's fault", we can assume... since he reminds of this every day.

This speech was typical Obama, present a show with some statements to impress the plebes, sew the seeds for blaming his own deficits on the Bush Administration, and completely ignore the fact that he's just signed the largest spending bill in US history. This is like Stalin giving a speech deploring conditions in his Siberian gulag.

It's about time Obama got called-out on his incredulous statements and disingenous "goals". He's been writing his own story while the MSM just parrots it for far too long, and very little of it squares-up with reality. Maybe the press could do their job already, we've had enough articles on Obama's puppy-vetting process and how he likes to play basketball.

Obama clearly couldn't deliver the type of temporary, targeted, and timely "stimulus" he repeatedly promised. He completely lacks the the political stature to control Pelosi and Reid... who hit the trough hard, while bickering like siblings.

And the paucity of GOP co-conspirators exposed Obama politically... this legislation now looks to be a huge gamble. When all this pork and welfare fails to generate real economic gains, the Democrats could face a bloodbath in 2010.

Historical precedent and all common sense suggest that it will not work. This is likely to be his first and last chance to get the economy back on-track before the mid-term elections.

One could make the argument he knows his legacy will already be in ruins by 2010-2012.. and is ramming through as much of his far-left agenda as he can before the day comes when people cringe at the mere mention of his name... sure seems like it.

He demonstrated once again why he is one of the best politicians this generation has produced, and why the American people were very wise to elect him.

Yes he did. The American people were indeed very wise to elect this intelligent, impressive, inspiring and charismatic man. Watching the republicans in the audience was interesting indeed. They were impressed. Further, it was abundantly clear John McCain has immense respect for his former opponent. No other current leader anywhere in the world comes close to President Obama in talent and leadership abilities.

A CBS News poll of approximately 500 people saw approval of the president rise from 62 percent before the speech to 69 percent afterward. Meanwhile, Republicans publish cartoons of a dead chimp being shot fore the stimulus and real Americans hold their nose in disgust at the filth conjured up by conservatives.

Fox "news" pundits on Jindal: BRIT HUME: "The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal's greatest oratorical moment." NINA EASTON: "The delivery was not exactly terrific." CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Jindal didn't have a chance. He follows Obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. He's in a Reagan-esque league. ... [Jindal] tried the best he could." JUAN WILLIAMS: "It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.

The Jindal-Titanic has sailed, with a passenger list full of GOP apologists and enablers.all

I hope they nominate him in 2012, with Alan Keyes as VP.

What better representative ticket for the spurious and incoherent GOP agenda?